Seeds of Time
by BleedingCoffee
Summary: The team thinks about their lives and future as the drive away from the lake where they died eight consecutive times.


AN: This is set after Season 2 Episode 7.

* * *

 **Seeds of Time**

* * *

 **"If you can look into the seeds of time,  
And say which grain will grow and which will not,  
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear  
Your favours nor your hate**." (Macbeth act 1, sc. 3)

* * *

Their world had changed significantly after the mission to avert the deadly course of Helios 685, even if it didn't affect the future as much as anticipated. The Traveler team had volunteered for what should have been a suicide mission as success could eradicate their existence, however in the silent days after the event they had to come to grasps with the reality that this _was_ their new life. No communication with the director meant that it was Protocol 5 from here on out. Each one of the team slowly came to the realization that this was no longer about temporarily inhabiting host bodies and utilizing their lives, but how their host bodies were now dictating their lives. What was a cover to see the mission to an end was now a new identity, a long term investment, _their_ future.

As so often the case, the information took time to be fully digested. The team went it's separate ways after Helios and when messengers once again started delivering missions they came back together. It was a great relief that the future was once again communicating with them as well as a welcome distraction from the shitshow that was their everyday lives. Their purpose was renewed, fears of losing their connection to the future abated and life propelled forward under the guidance of their trusted protocols and Director.

However their cover lives continued to fall apart around them. Focus could only be maintained on one point at a time and when Protocol 1 was the priority the rest so easily shattered in the peripherals. It was a struggle they all dealt with; picking up the broken shards of their host body's lives and trying to keep them in a usable form. Trying to put them back together like a broken mirror and continue to see a life that was gone, using context clues and one dimensional historical records to keep the show going. They had trained for this but living the lives of these people they studied proved so much more complicated than imagined. They were now invested in an entirely different way.

It wasn't until they actually died, _several times_ , that the true impact of their cover lives on their consciousness was fully realized. They had all seen the emotional attachments they developed towards the 21st century family and friends go wrong: Mac went off mission to save his wife, Trevor broke protocol to save Grace. They wrote it off and closed ranks, moved on: the mission was all that mattered. However it wasn't until that day as they drove away from the lake where they had died _repeatedly_ in other timelines that it truly hit home that their present day lives had crept into the focal point and not just the peripherals. Not that it took precedent over the future and saving the world, but that perhaps there were other people they desperately wanted to save.

They drove in silence home. _Home_. Somehow it had become home along the way. They were all thinking about those they loved _here_ who would have been devastated had the director allowed them to die on that beach. The concept was not foreign, their existence here in the 21st century was rooted in the deaths of their hosts, but now it was all more than historical facts, data and obituaries. It was a widow, a child without a mother, parents without a son, the perfect guy losing a girl he refused to loose faith in and a turtle who would die in his tank without food.

Everyone checked their phones constantly, checking for a re-connection to the people they loved. Mac stared at his texts, one from a distressed pregnant wife who deserved a better 10th anniversary than what she was getting. It was a stupid custom from his perspective but life was so much fuller in this century, so much luxury, and he had to remember that. He had to remember that his marriage had already fallen apart once and he had been given another chance to live this life he had stolen. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat and broke the silence. "So tell me what to do to salvage my anniversary."

Marcy sat in the backseat looking at her phone. She looked at her teams faces, they smiled a little as their boss asked for advice, and she knew she should _feel_ something. She looked down at her phone at a cover photo of her and David and saw a smile on her own face that said she did feel something back when this picture was taken. Her conversation on the beach with Mac left her feeling emptier than ever. His inference that David was the reason she would have accepted death instead of being repackaged in order to serve the mission, well it spoke volumes. It told her she had to find those memories because it was the only way to be whole again. Whole, so she could give personal advice instead of reciting 21th century courting practices when her boss asked how to be a better husband to his wife. "You need to buy the diamonds."

" _Diamonds_. Plural?" Mac said and looked over at Carly as she smirked.

"Don't worry, they come in sets. Necklace and earnings. Larger the better, bigger the price tag the better." Carly said. Diamonds were so far from her own life's expectations she wasn't even sure she could relate to him. She's settle for just having her son back and a box of baby toys to make up for what he was going through. She had a different kind of man in her life and vastly different priorities. However she could understand how he'd want to make things better, to smooth over the wrong directions they had taken and see a smile and feel the glow of love. Unfortunately her life required she get approval from the state to have that chance. "You just sold your house, didn't you?"

Mac closed his eyes. "Any way we can just make some in the lab?"

"Buy the diamonds boss." Trevor said and tapped his phone to see if he had any bars yet. He worried about Grace. She didn't have the training she needed to blend in well with this time and he worried she would be completely lost without this team. Her skill-set was vital, her personal skills lacking and her desire to loosely interpret the rules borderline cataclysmic. He worried more about the actions she would take if left alone than how she would react to being alone. She was good at taking action instead of adapting, patience was not her strength, and the actions were not always for anyone else's good. "Since you're getting back late you better put together something extravagant too. Like dinner by candlelight, roses and a romantic weekend away."

"I don't think you understand the kind of food she likes, Trevor." Mac said as he thought about the damned near rare steak she had ordered at the restaurant the other night. It was bleeding so much he wondered why she didn't just sink her teeth into a cow. "I don't think there is menu for that kind of particular palate."

Phillip couldn't believe he didn't consider having someone check in on Poppy. _Him_. Eyes and mind always seeing death and unfortunate events and he overlooked the potential fallout for a innocent life trapped inside a tank without a way to access food and water without intervention. If he was killed he could count on the team to see to Poppy, but if the whole team was killed who would know? "Once I get a signal I'll organize it. Flowers, candles and a private dinner somewhere expensive."

"Why the focus on _expensive_?" Mac mumbled. " _Life_ is a gift, not some rocks or bleeding meat or plants cut from their life source so they can die in days. Why is this century so materialistic?"

Marcy looked at him, the only one who knew exactly what he was speaking of. Life he had created and she had helped increase the chance of survival. She wondered if he was dense enough to tell his wife their baby was his anniversary gift, but she had seen the pleading in his eyes when he asked her to help save his child's life. He said it was for Kat but she saw it was more than that. A man who believed in the Protocols and the director with every fiber of his being who had violated Protocol 4 and enlisted her help to do so. How many of them were compromised now that they had accepted their host's life as their own? This baby was no more Mac's than Carly's was hers, biologically they were children of the host, but they not once considered that. "Renew your vows."

Mac's head whipped around and he looked at her incredulously. "What?"

"That's an option boss." Trevor said. "Good for both of you too. Really makes you think about what you mean to each other and makes you share that with the person you love."

"We're already married." Mac stated the obvious but he saw it fall on deaf ears.

"No, your host married her." Carly said, perhaps the bitterness of him falling in love with Kat was far from out of her system. Reasoning with him had become difficult and pointless, especially after he decided to sacrifice his life for his wife. "The real Grant MacLaron married her, you've just been taking advantage of his life. Maybe if we're stuck living these lives a commitment from _you_ might be good idea."

He felt the sting of that but Carly didn't even give him a glance. It wasn't just her though, the entire team had suffered the ramifications of his actions.

"You didn't swear that oath to her, your host did." Marcy looked out the window at woods as they drove.

"This is really something people do?" Mac asked, partially out of desperation and partially because it was redundant and pointless. Maybe on another day he would have not considered it, but considering this day had been nothing but redundant and ended in him dying repeatedly without his knowledge, perhaps it was best to end it on a more positive note.

"You should get to work writing your vows." Trevor said. "Personal and heartfelt, she can Google them to find out if you found them on the internet."

"Can we revisit the diamonds?" Mac asked and realized that a wireless signal must have reemerged as his team was lost in their phones and Philips fingers were already tapping away at his keyboard.

"You're still giving her diamonds." Carly snorted. "You never got out of that."


End file.
